Nightmare Manor
by Madman With a Pen
Summary: The Doctor, Amy and Rory arrive at an ancient and impossible manor house. They soon find themselves locked in, facing their greatest fears - but can they reach the top floor and its terrifying secret?  My first upload!
1. Chapter 1

Atop Elm Hill sat the impossible house. Nobody knew how long it had been there – all architectural research had found a million contradicting pieces of evidence to indicate its age. But it looked as though it had sat there and an eternity had passed it by. The bricks that made up its walls were grey and crumbling. The windows were crooked, the glass cracked, steamed up and distorted. The pointed roof was made of dark grey tiles, dust forever falling away from them, like a lifeless waterfall.

The steps leading up to the ancient oak front door were formed by cold concrete, with rusted iron railings on either side. A demonic metal face rested on the door's surface, a large heavy door knocker hanging from its fanged mouth. The house towered high above the dead grass that surrounded it. It was four storeys high, including the spacious attic, and through the highest windows a faint blue flickering light could forever be seen.

The house's most impossible feature, however, was that it was still deserted after its many long years. Many people had entered the house over the years, but none had ever left. The way things had always been, were that whenever anybody came close to the house, or crossed its threshold, they were never seen again.

Elm Village, which the house overlooked, was home to many families, most of whom still felt the misery of the members they had lost to the manor. No longer did any of the village dwellers dare to approach the hilltop. However, every so often, there arose an exception.

James Walton was a young, fair haired boy, just ten years old on the afternoon he approached the house. His family had only just moved into the village, and he had been exploring his new neighbourhood. Running up the hill, filled with joy and excitement, he had found the house. Its foreboding appearance always seemed somehow thrilling and inviting to children. It was always the children who would dare to venture inside, without a second thought. James had approached it, clambering up the large concrete steps to the doorway. Before he had so much as laid a finger on the door, it had swung open before him with an ancient high pitched creaking. Anxiously, his eyes wide open with wondering awe, James stepped inside. The door slammed shut behind him. A short gasp of fear escaped his lips when he saw the wax models of butlers by either side of the door. Their features were hideously distorted; wide, bulging eyes staring out at him, mouths fixed in threatening smiles. James ran to the main stairway, quickly clambering up it to the next floor. At the top of the staircase, he ran down a small corridor, leading him into a vast, shadowy space. He stopped there, glancing around the darkened room, trying to see what was around him.

From somewhere behind him, in the shadows, he heard movement. Quickly, nervously spinning round, he peered at the far side of the room. Nothing there. It must have been his imagination. He started to walk to the next set of stairs, when he heard it again – a fast, scuttling sound, like a thousand spider legs on a wooden floor. James froze, scared. Something was there, in the room with him and he didn't know what. The noise sounded again, faster louder, getting closer. James was breathing heavily, scared, knowing the noise had come from behind him. Slowly, his eyes half closed, he turned around, facing the thing in the dark. His eyes snapped wide open. James Walton screamed his last.


	2. Chapter 2

The TARDIS console room was rocking violently from side to side, the sound of the engine distorted and struggling. The Doctor reached over the controls, yanking a lever back and flicking a few switches. Amy and Rory stood at the side of the console's platform, hanging onto the railing for dear life. They were both struggling to remain standing as the TARDIS continued to shake back and forth, almost as though it were trying to send them off balance.

"Calm down, old girl!" the Doctor shouted, feverishly pressing and pulling at any of the controls he could get hold of.

"What's going on?" Amy screamed, before being thrown to the floor.

"She won't stabilise! It's like something's just grabbed hold of her and is pulling her out of the vortex!" the Doctor explained, still trying to get the console in working order.

"What's doing it?" Amy asked, as Rory helped her back to her feet.

"Well, it is, most probably, a thing!"

"A thing?" Rory stammered, annoyed and confused.

"Yes, Rory, a thing. A very big, extremely nasty and very not good sort of thing!"

The Doctor tugged heavily against the main lever, the light bulbs on its stand all flashing out, as the room fell still with a heavy thud that sent everyone tumbling to the floor. The engines had stopped and the console was back in its usual, mostly still state. The Doctor was the first to be back on his feet, straightening out his braces and tweed jacket, before checking his bowtie.

"Cool." He murmured, as Amy and Rory sluggishly helped each other clamber back to their feet.

"Why can you never fly this thing smoothly?" Amy demanded, slightly breathlessly.

"Oi! It's not my fault! She's an old type 40." the Doctor explained. "She's not as smooth as she used to be. Would have been. Maybe. Actually, it's always been like this. Don't know why, really. Been meaning to check, for… quite a while."

With a final observation of the console, he ran towards the TARDIS doors, bursting to explore their new location.

"Doctor, what's out there?" Rory asked.

"I've absolutely no idea." the Doctor replied quietly, pulling the doors open.

He stepped outside, onto a large patch of dead grass. A very large patch. He looked around, taking in the surroundings – a hilltop, whole hill covered in grass, but at the top it was all dead. Small village below, by the looks of it early 21st century. Turning around, he saw the colossal, ancient house.

"Ah! Now that looks interesting…" He started walking over, as Amy and Rory emerged from the TARDIS and took in the sight of the building.

"Looks lovely." Rory commented, sarcasm heavy in his voice.

"Looks like the sort of place that needs exploring." Amy said, apparently either missing or ignoring the sarcasm, as she ran after the Doctor.

"Er… Amy? That's not what I meant… Amy!" Rory knew his attempts were in vain. Giving up, he ran after her.

"So, where are we?" Amy asked the Doctor, excitedly.

"Not sure… your time, I think…" he was checking the sonic screwdriver as he spoke. "Yep, definitely, 2011, but…" He let himself fall to his knees, and then onto all fours, pressing his ear against the ground, and sniffing at the tall blades of lifeless grass. "I wonder…"

He plucked a few blades from the ground and stood up, placing the dead grass in his mouth. After a few seconds of careful consideration, he spat it back out. "This grass has been here for centuries…" he said, now scanning the ground with the sonic.

"Yeah, so? It's all dead!"

"Well look at the rest of the hill! Covered in fresh green grass, but up here it's all completely dead. Why?" He was pacing up and down, examining everything. "And I'll tell you something else; it died in a very peculiar sort of way. It's as though all the life was just drained out of it. It doesn't make sense!"

"So what did it?" asked Rory, who had caught up with them.

"Good question. The only possible thing, as far as I can tell, is that house!"

The Doctor pointed at the large, decrepit yet imposing building.

"But, it's just an old mansion. Looks like it's been abandoned for years."

"Ah, yes, but, looks can be deceiving. The readings from that place…" he scanned it with the sonic again, "are phenomenal! The amount of power that thing is giving out is huge! That is no ordinary house." the Doctor explained, becoming more and more excited.

"What is it then?" Amy asked, her brow furrowed in confusion.

"I don't know. But I intend to find out."

The Doctor grinned broadly and then started striding towards the house's heavy concrete steps. "Come along, Pond!" he called back to her.

Amy smiled, following the Doctor up to the house, Rory at her side. He always seemed so nervous when confronted by these things, but couldn't deny there was a buzz of excitement in his heart whenever they were facing something new.

The three of them reached the door and it swung open for them. The Doctor peered inside, cautiously, stepping over the threshold, into the dilapidated old building, Amy and Rory close behind him, stepping inside with a bit less confidence. Once they were all within the house's walls, the door flew back on its hinges, shutting itself with a weighty crash. There was a series of clunking sounds, as locks sealed themselves, keeping the door shut. A thin smile touched the Doctor's lips.

"Now it starts."


	3. Chapter 3

From a room at the very top of the building, the Doctor and his friends were being watched. Observed. Studied. Camera-like equipment threaded throughout the house was feeding images of the time travellers back to a round-edged screen on the top floor. A series of dark eyes stared, unblinking at the footage, admiring their latest catch – the last of the Time Lords. And his TARDIS.

On the ground floor, the Doctor was pacing around the entrance hall, his attention fixed on the sonic screwdriver.

"None of this makes sense. Power readings are in a state of constant binary-level simultaneous flux!"

"In English, Doctor…?" Rory requested.

"The power is both incredibly high and at absolutely nothing at the same time! It's impossible!"

"How can the power be high and not there at the same time?"

"Well, that's the thing Rory, it can't! It's a scientific impossibility; none of this makes sense! Which is good – hate it when things make sense!"

Smiling, he hurriedly plunged the sonic back into his inside pocket and started looking around the building, examining all the details. Looking at every doorway, every design on every wall, every piece of furniture, every single feature within the dark, cavernous hallway.

"Doctor…" Amy said, nervously.

"What is it, Pond?" he asked, distracted by a vase of dead roses. "Dead… like the grass. Why is it all dead?" he muttered to himself.

"Doctor! What's with the creepy butler statues?"

The Doctor looked up, his eyes wide open, looking in the same direction as Amy.

On either side of the door stood a wax model of a butler. The same wax models that had terrified James Walton a few days ago. The distorted features reminded Amy of the creepy clown masks that could be found at Halloween. The eyes were large, bulging orbs; inhuman smiles stretched halfway up their faces and the noses were pointed and bent upwards. Their skin was pale, their hair thin, grey and wiry and there were slightly too many wrinkles set deep into the wax skin.

"Ooh, scary statues. Always something slightly worrying about scary statues in a house that makes no sense on a hilltop full of dead grass." the Doctor babbled, as he walked slowly closer to the wax models, his back hunched over and his eyes never blinking, constantly taking in every detail of the butlers.

His light footsteps issued loud creaks on the ancient wooden floorboards. The dark air that surrounded them made it evermore difficult to see the distorted features of the wax models, both standing perfectly still, a threatening picture frame to the image of the dark doorway.

Then, with a terrible screeching noise, echoing throughout the darkened hall, the deformed heads of the statues slowly began to turn, tilting and focussing on the Doctor, Amy and Rory. Amy clasped her hands to her mouth, concealing a silent scream. Rory nervously began to edge back from the wax creatures. Suddenly jolting into life, their arms shot out, grabbing at the air, hungry for victims. The Doctor remained very still, watching every movement that the butlers made. With a terrible cracking sound, their backs began to arch over, giving the butlers a hunched, brutish posture. Then their legs, moving without grace or elegance, began to lurch forward, slowly at first, but gathering speed. They stepped away from the door, their inhuman smiles fixed on the Doctor and his companions.

"Ah. Right. This might not be good." the Doctor said quietly; worry starting to bite at his tone. He stood up straight, giving himself a welcoming posture. "Hello, fellers! Don't suppose either of you could put some tea on? Or any Jammy Dodgers, per chance?" he asked them, in a friendly voice. Their threatening, maddened expressions remained unchanged, their heads simply tilting to the side with another horrific screeching noise, like iron fingernails scraping against a hardened blackboard.

The Doctor started backing away, motioning to Amy and Rory to do the same.

"Er, okay, I suggest a different tactic." he said nervously. "Run!"

The trio all turned on their heels, running to the other end of the hall, where the sweeping staircase was located, dusted with cobwebs. No sooner had their feet touched the first few steps than two more wax butlers had appeared at the top of the stairs, their bulging eyes glaring down upon the time travellers.

"Okay, maybe not!" said the Doctor, jumping back off the stairs and into the hall.

Doors lined the walls of the spacious room – at least one of them had to be a suitable escape route. Avoiding the original pair of butlers, which were now moving with animal like speed and brutality, the Doctor approached the nearest pair of double doors. His hands gripped the handles tightly, feeling something on the other side, pushing back. The doors flung open. From the darkened room that lay beyond them, four more of the deformed butlers tore into the hall.

"Doctor! What are these things?" Amy called out, as she was forced to roll across the floor to avoid one of them.

"Animated models. Possibly robotic, possibly psychic control. Either way, whatever's controlling them hasn't exactly taken a shine to us!" the Doctor shouted back, still running, ducking and dodging the sweeps of the butlers' arms.

"Well how do we get away from them?" Rory shouted, both angry and fearful.

"Keep trying the doors!" the Doctor replied, before jumping over a table, to avoid a butler that had leapt like a wild beast at him. It turned its head back to face him, its features still frozen in that grotesque smile, visible wisps of breath flowing from its mouth.

Rory punched another one of the room's doors open, finding a long dark corridor on the other side.

"Doctor! Through here!"

The Doctor smiled, pushing his way past another pair of the animated wax figures, running towards where Rory was standing.

"Amy! This way!" he called out as he leapt towards the narrow doorway.

With a loud scream, Amy forced herself to run past the butlers, heading towards the Doctor and Rory. Finding her way across the room, Amy was so close to the door, so close to her husband and to the Doctor, when…

Leaping out of nowhere, a wax butler landed squarely in front of her. She stopped, shocked, scared. Its distorted smile started to twist, reversing itself into an elongated frown, the extended edges of the thing's thin lifeless lips started to stretch down either side of its face, the eyebrows furrowing in anger, causing even more deeply set wrinkles to form on its forehead. Its joints made that awful screeching as it leaned towards Amy, more of the wax creatures now starting to gather around it, surrounding her.

"Amy!" Rory shouted, starting to run towards her, propelling himself forward.

"Stay where you are!" Amy shouted back. She could get out of this. She didn't need Rory endangering himself too. Slowly, she started to back away from the gathering butlers. They all stalked her slowly, creeping closer and closer. Amy's breathing was getting harder and harder, her fear and her panic building up more and more. There were so many of the wax things, but she had to find enough courage to get away. Taking a deep breath, she spun around and ran, as fast as her long legs could move. The butlers instantly leapt into life, running after her, some moving on all fours, all of them deadly silent apart from the bloodcurdling screeches that issued out from within them.

Amy carefully but quickly manoeuvred her way around the room. The butlers may have been powerful, but she had agility on her side. Running towards the Doctor and Rory meant having to run straight past the wax army. She pushed herself away from the wall, making herself keep running, having to swerve and swing her way around the tips of solid hands as the butlers lashed out. She could see the Doctor clearly now, but was so aware of the monsters behind her. Pushing herself more and more, she threw herself against the wall next to the doorway the Doctor and Rory were stood at.

"Blimey, can we _not_ do that again?" she asked, exhausted.

The Doctor smiled at her and looked back up. The butler's loss of a victim seemed to have left them slightly confused. They were huddled on the far side of the room, slowly turning to face the Doctor, Amy and Rory again.

"Okay, no time to waste! Come along Ponds!" the Doctor blurted at them hurriedly.

"I am not Mr. Pond!" Rory insisted.

"Just get through the door!" the Doctor shouted back, not taking much notice of what he had said.

Sighing in irritation, though the fear still present in his mind, Rory jumped through the doorway into the corridor, landing with a heavy thud. As soon as he had done so, the doorway was illuminated with a bright blue crackling of light.

"Doctor, what's it doing?" Amy asked, concerned, her eyes on the wall of light separating her from Rory.

"Ah, well, it's sort of a forcefield. Stopping us from getting in. Stopping Rory from getting out." the Doctor replied slowly, becoming worried again.

"Why would it do that?" Amy asked.

"I don't know." the Doctor admitted, a little reluctantly.

Just then, the entire corridor began to move, sliding to the left, out of sight of the doorway, taking Rory with it.

"Doctor!" he shouted, running back to the sealed off entrance.

"Rory!" the Doctor and Amy shouted in unison.

As soon as the corridor was out of sight, another one had taken its place.

"Oh, I see…" the Doctor said with a smile. "You next, Pond!"

He shoved Amy through the open door, into the new passageway.

"Doctor?"

Before she had time to say anymore, that corridor had slid out of view as well. The Doctor turned his attention back to the butlers. They were staying still. Just watching, allowing this to happen.

"Why aren't you attacking me?" the Doctor inquired quietly.

Another corridor slammed into place behind him. Moving like lightning, the Doctor threw himself through the doorway, landing safely in the corridor. He looked back up, just as the corridor started to shift again, the open doorway being replaced by a solid stone wall.

"Trapped." the Doctor whispered. "Someone's making a big mistake."


	4. Chapter 4

The corridor ahead of the Time Lord seemed to stretch on for an eternity. No ending was visible and darkness ebbed and flowed across the edges of the passageway. The walls were a dull grey, with long deep scratches running along their length. Every footstep the Doctor took echoed loudly, the whole corridor now filled with a repetitive ghostly rhythm, the sounds of footsteps blending into one another, volumes changing as new echoes began and old ones died away. Growing constantly more anxious, he took a deep sniff at the air. It was cold, almost empty, sitting awkwardly in his lungs and sending an unwelcome chill through his body.

"Strange…" he muttered quietly, before continuing to walk down the impossibly long passage. There was no way a corridor this extensive could fit inside the house they had seen. None of this made sense.

The Doctor pulled out the sonic screwdriver, aiming it down the corridor. His finger hovered, almost uncertain for a moment, before coming to rest on the sonic's button.

As soon as he had pressed it, a reverberating mess of moaning and screeching bellowed out, filling the corridor, drowning out the sonic's familiar buzzing noise. The unnatural howling was bleeding out of the frozen air that filled the corridor, screaming in response to the Doctor's screwdriver. Grimacing, he quickly flicked the sonic back off, placing it back in his pocket.

"Amy? Rory?" No response. He was alone, lost in the dark. Unable to think of anything, or find any way of escaping this predicament, the Doctor chose to do the only thing he could right now. The oldest tradition that he had ever sought to embrace in the face of danger. He ran.

Amy was standing completely alone. Isolated. Confused. She didn't know where she was, or what she should do. The Doctor and Rory were gone; they could be anywhere. From what she had seen through the doorway, it was most likely they were in the same predicament as her, but she couldn't be sure. Would they have worked it out yet? Would they have gotten to safety? "Her boys" – would they have done it? Terror was scratching out at her, slithering deeper and deeper into her soul. She felt abandoned and so, so alone. All she could do was keep walking, hoping that this corridor would end. The doorway she had entered through was rapidly starting to vanish from sight, whenever she looked back. It seemed as though the passage went on for miles.

What if there was nothing at the other end? Why did she feel like she couldn't turn back? The corridor may have been impossibly long, but it had a low hanging stone ceiling and narrow walls. Claustrophobia was winding its way slowly, steadily, into Amy's mind. It was as though the whole room may collapse on her at any second. She could feel her breathing accelerating, feeling as though she was trapped, contained by impenetrable stone walls. The space around her suddenly felt so very small, like a long dark coffin. If she was trapped here, if there was no way out, she would die cold and alone, hidden from the world in this dark concrete tomb. Goosebumps crawled down her spine, and Amy made herself ignore her fears, her lip trembling, as she continued walking, running, down the long, long corridor.

Rory stood still, trembling, worried. He didn't know what had happened to Amy or the Doctor. He had just been made to stand, helpless, as the doorway fell out of view. Where were the other two? Were they okay? Had the butlers got them? He knocked, helplessly, at the wall, hoping beyond hope for a response. He turned his attention back to the corridor that lay ahead of him, not knowing whether he should proceed or not. What if he could get back to the other side? For all he knew, Amy and the Doctor could still be there. But then again, what if they had escaped? If they were safe, he would only be endangering himself by going back. The corridor ahead of him had an uneasy air of promise about it. Rory tried to ignore it, trying to focus. Why had he gone first? If Amy had gone through first at least he would know she was safe now. Or was he the one in danger? If Amy and the Doctor had escaped the butlers, then he would be the one that needed to be saved. His mind was becoming overcrowded with desperate, nervous thoughts. Rory forced himself to look calmly at the situation. _What would Amy do? What would the Doctor do?_ He looked up, staring into the dark abyss of the corridor ahead and started walking down it, his pace constantly accelerating. He was becoming more and more afraid, every second, but this was all he could do.

The Doctor was nearing the end of the corridor. He could almost see the far wall. Its features were distorted by swirling dark clouds, blocking his vision, stopping him from finding what he was looking for. With his last few steps, the Doctor reached the wall at the end of the corridor. The consuming black mist was now swirling and warping its way around him, biting at his turned up trouser legs and the edges of his jacket. There was a certain tingling contained in the darkened air, like a horde of wasps or mosquitoes, stinging and biting at whatever they could find. The Doctor tried to ignore it, pushing himself against the wall. His ear pressed against the cold concrete, as he strained to hear anything on the other side. Nothing. Just cold, dead silence. He pulled out the sonic screwdriver, aiming it at the wall and bracing himself for the noise. He pushed the button.

Once again, the air was ripped apart with indistinguishable screams and wails, the sound splitting through the corridor, stabbing violently at the Doctor's ears. He forced himself to put up with the sound, keeping the sonic aimed steadily at the wall. The swarming black mist began to part, and a heavy stone door was revealed. The Doctor kept the sonic trained on the door, the screeching that filled the air almost unbearable. He was bent over, his face contorted with pain as the screams and blaring unearthly noises got louder and louder, scratching out at him. It wasn't just sound, it was like something had been released in the air, something that was attacking every one of the Doctor's nerve endings. His whole body was screaming out in pain, unable to take anymore, and yet he refused to give up. He kept the sonic aimed squarely on the lock of the door until – with a heavy clunk, the lock burst open, sending sparks flying from the keyhole. With a deep gasp of relief, the Doctor turned the sonic off and the corridor fell silent once more. He sank to the floor, his back propped up against the wall, as his thick fringe fell over his face. He sat for a moment, gathering his breath, regaining his strength. He looked down at the screwdriver in his hand.

"Why is that happening? Why does this place respond to the screwdriver like that?" He managed to ask himself the question between deep, desperate breaths, before allowing his head to fall back against the stone wall. Putting the sonic back into his pocket, he brushed his hair from his eyes and leapt back to his feet. A smile spread across his features as he turned to face the door.

"Never try and keep me in a trap!" he whispered to himself, before looking up, spotting a camera lens by the door. "Do you hear me? Whoever you are, whatever you want, you have gone too far! You've taken the worst possible prisoner you could, because now I will not stop until I have found you and put an end to this. You can give up peacefully or die fighting. Your choice! But by the end of this day, I will have stopped you! I will have defeated you! And there is nothing you can do to stop me! I am the oncoming storm! I am the Doctor!" he finished, smiling triumphantly. "Look me up." he added quietly, before walking towards the door and laying his hand on the oversized handle.

With another deep breath, he pulled it downwards and tugged hard, forcing the door to open. It was heavy, almost trying to force itself to stay closed, but the Doctor wasn't about to give up. With one final, struggling heave, the door locked into a half-open position. Slipping through the gap, he was hit by a frosty chill on the other side. He looked at his new surroundings, rubbing his hands together.

A small, metallic room, with walls formed by hefty panels, nailed into place. As with the rest of the derelict building, the room was largely featureless, apart from a small iron spiral staircase, in its centre. Turning on his heels, the Doctor saw another two doors in the wall, next to the one he had just entered through. He whipped out the sonic, pointing it at the first of the doors. He hesitated before pressing the button on the metallic device. That noise, that power that had been released before…

The Doctor smiled to himself. Since when had he let the threat of danger stop him? It was what kept him going. He pressed his finger firmly against the button. The screeching erupted from the air once more, within a second it had filled the room and then… nothing. Silence. Sparks fell from some of the room's top corners, but the noise had exploded into non-existence. It had met with its barriers at the end of corridor.

The other two doors swung open. The Doctor peered in, expectantly. A rush of black smoke unfurled itself from within both doors, flooding the small room, before dissipating into nothingness. In a tumble of red hair and short skirt, Amy fell through the first door, landing rather ungracefully on the floor. With a large grin, the Doctor ran over to her, helping her to her feet, just as Rory stumbled through the other door, looking rather confused at the room he now found himself in.

"Doctor?"

"Hello, Rory!" the Doctor bellowed happily, but Rory's attention was no longer resting on the Time Lord.

"Amy!"

"Rory!" she replied, joyous and breathless, as she ran over to her husband, throwing her arms around him.

The two embraced each other tightly, filled with relief at being reunited, whilst the Doctor, flashing the couple a smile, walked over to the spiral staircase. Examining it with a look of wonder and confusion on his face, he started to make his way up the stairs.

"Doctor? What are you doing?" Rory asked, looking up at the winding stairs.

"Oh, you know me… exploring!" he grinned, before adding, "Funny thing, though, that hug."

"That hug?" Amy repeated, slightly baffled.

"Yes. Great big very happy sort of hug you two just had." the Doctor said thoughtfully.

"We are married, Doctor. It's what couples do!" Rory tried to explain.

"Ah, but how long were you separated from each other? No longer than a few minutes, yet you seem overwhelmed to be seeing each other again."

"We were in danger!" Amy protested.

"Were you?" the Doctor asked. "Funny, the things a hug can show. That's not just relief at seeing each other, that's relief that you're both still alive. Like you were afraid. Very afraid."

"We were trapped in a dark corridor…" Amy began, before the Doctor cut her off.

"Exactly my point, Pond! Hardly the scariest thing we've faced. Those butlers were scarier than those corridors. Something about those corridors is creating fear, unnatural fear. Those corridors are making us scared."

"How do you know it's not just genuine fear?" Rory asked, still not quite believing the Doctor's argument.

The Doctor just gave a small smile, turning back to the staircase he was stood on. He began walking up the metal steps, before speaking quietly.

"Because a dark corridor has never scared me before."


	5. Chapter 5

Amy and Rory nervously clambered up the steps after the Doctor, following him through the darkened shaft in the roof of the room. An empty biting frost stung at the air in the vast hall they found themselves in. The room was almost completely pitch black, the only light creeping in from a few windows set into the sides of the room. However, through the windows, it was not the outside world that could be seen, but a twisting swirling mass of deep blue and purple clouds, surrounding them. Trapping them. They gave off an eerie glow, which scratched and wound its way into the interior of the derelict building, casting distorted elongated shadows across the already darkened space.

The Doctor was stood a little ahead of his companions, his form silhouetted against the unearthly light that was being cast across the room. He had the sonic screwdriver in his hand and was focussing intently upon its constant whirring.

"Now! This room takes up a whole floor of the house, so it's big. Very big! So, the question is, why give all that space to one room?"

Amy and Rory looked at each other, exchanging a nervous glance. Without looking away from his wife, it was Rory who spoke next.

"Doctor, if it's just an old house, does interior design really matter?"

The Doctor flicked the sonic back into his pocket, before swirling round to face the couple.

"Ah, but, Rory, that's the thing – it's not just an old house. After what happened downstairs, we can be pretty sure it's not just an old house. But then what's the point of it? And if everything that happened down there was just a greeting…"

He spun back round, to face the rest of the vast, shadowed, chamber.

"What's waiting up here?"

Rory and Amy instinctively grabbed each other's hands, their fingers squeezing tightly together.

"Doctor," Amy stammered, "can we not just head to the stairs?"

"Can't be that easy." the Doctor whispered, thoughtfully scanning every detail within the area. "But then again, how do you know if you don't try? Come along Pond."

The Doctor, anxiously though briskly, started to make his way across the room, heading to the barely visible staircase at the far end. Amy and Rory followed, though their nerves forbade them to do so with as much speed as the Time Lord. As they moved, the cold lashing violently at their skin, a quiet rattling echoed from one distant corner of the room. Amy froze, Rory quickly stumbling to a halt beside her.

"Doctor, what was that?"

The Doctor was already wandering off in the direction of the noise, bent over slightly, peering into the darkness.

"I don't know…"

The soles of the Doctor's boots made dull, reverberating echoes as they touched the floor, sending a slight shiver through the darkened room. As the twisted shadows began to conceal him, another sound issued out from within the darkness – an inhuman, heavy, scuttling sound.

Peering into the darkened corners of the room, the Doctor's eyes widened as he started to pick out an outline.

"Amy, Rory… you should run. Now!"

"What is it?" Rory asked quickly, rooted to the spot.

"Run!" the Doctor repeated, his tone urgent, fearful.

He was running towards them, leaving the shadows behind, as something quickly stirred within them. Before Amy and Rory could move, the thing had burst out of hiding, into the dim, unearthly light that dwelled within the room.

It was huge – a hulking, pulsating, slime-ridden mass. A giant worm-like creature, its skin pitch black and adorned with cracked, black bones. A million legs protruded from underneath it, each one a small, tough, claw-like appendage with a brutally sharpened end. Several blood red eyes were bulging from its misshapen head, each one with thick veins swelling from its surface. There was no iris or pupil – just that searing, empty, crimson stare. Its mouth was surrounded by rotting mandibles and bloodied fangs, each one thicker than a human head, and beyond which there laid a thick, dark abyss.

The creature let out a terrifying, trembling roar, which echoed endlessly against itself, filling the cold air of the dark, forbidding chamber. Amy screamed – a high, terrifying sound, almost drowned out by the creature's bloodthirsty bellowing.

She had turned on her heels and started running, desperately trying to escape the thing, Rory by her side. But it was coming after them, its movements large and clumsy, but powerful. And fast – very fast. Amy found herself repeatedly ducking and weaving in all sorts of different directions to escape it; if she ran in a straight line it would catch up with her easily.

She was vaguely aware that she had lost track of Rory somewhere in the maze of wooden pillars that seemed to fill the room, but she couldn't find him now – it would only result in that thing catching her.

The Doctor was stood near the edge of the room, moving slowly with the sonic trained on the thing. An intent, determined expression was on his face, the sonic's whirring becoming increasingly high pitched.

"Oi! Beasty! Over here!" he called out, running towards it, the sonic still aimed squarely at its dark, bone-armoured body.

With another deep, excruciating roar, it thrust its swollen head round, to face the Doctor. Slowly, its whole pulsating, stretching body, began to writhe and turn, so that it was entirely turned towards the Time Lord. Its vein-ridden crimson eyes, met his sharply staring gaze.

"Okay… here's the tricky bit…"

He held the sonic screwdriver out, its tone reaching a screeching crescendo. The creature screamed out, a cry of pain, the sonic sound waves tormenting it. Then, with another of its reverberating deep bellows, it launched itself through the thick dark air, leaping at the Doctor.

He was turning and running from it, leading it through the room by the illuminated screech of the sonic screwdriver. The creature's roars were tearing through the room, disturbing signs of its determination to extinguish the unbearable noise and its creator. It smashed through wooden pillars, sending splinters cascading in all directions. The Doctor reached the far wall, a darkly clouded window next to him as he pressed his back against the cold stone. The emerald light of his screwdriver was still extended in front of him, taunting the hellish, worm-like monster that was stampeding towards him.

"Come on… come on…" his voice was quiet, the words muttered under his breath.

The black, twisting shape of the thing reared itself up as it came close to the Doctor, ready to bring itself crashing down on him, but he was still, waiting for the right moment…

The monster flung itself downwards – steeply downwards. The Doctor ducked out of the way, but watched, shocked. It wouldn't have hit him if he had stayed put. Instead it slammed into the floor, where it seemed to melt away into the shadows that clawed at the wooden surface.

Moving cautiously forward, to where the beast had been a second ago, the Doctor stared, surprised and wide-eyed.

"What? Where have you gone?" he whispered, though seemingly to nobody other than himself.

"Doctor?" Amy called out from the other end of the room. "Where did it go?"

"I don't know!" he called back, though his gaze was fixed on the spot where the thing had been. "It just sort of… vanished. But it was like… like it was joining with the shadows…"

"Joining with the shadows?" Rory repeated, perplexed.

"Yes, Rory, becoming a part of the darkness that is filling this room."

"How does it do that?"

"I don't know." the Doctor admitted, the shock still present in his voice.

He looked up, staring across the room at his companions. The Ponds. They were stood a short distance apart, having been separated when fleeing, and both of them still looked shaken up. They had been left unharmed but…

"Frightened." the Doctor whispered, so quietly they could not have heard. "Seems to be a lot of fear in this place."

He allowed himself to relax a little more, now that the creature had vanished. Raising his arm, he beckoned Amy and Rory over to where he was stood. Then he saw it.

At first it was hardly noticeable, just a blot at the back of the room, but it became more evident, more defined, with each second. The silhouette of the worm creature, visible against the warped blue light hitting the back wall.

"Stay where you are!" he suddenly shouted at Amy and Rory. His eyes were darting in every direction, looking for the creature, hiding amongst the shadows, but it wasn't there. "Joining with the shadows…"

They had seen it too – Amy and Rory were both now staring at the back wall, frozen, terrified.

"What do we do?" Amy asked, her voice timid, though loud enough to reach the Doctor.

"Just stay very still." the Doctor said, his voice slow, instructive.

The silhouette ripped open its fanged mouth and that same deep, echoing roar filled the room. And the wall was pulsating. It was as though it had lost its solidity, and where the silhouette touched it, the dull surface was starting to stretch and move. The creature was trying to leave the shadows.

"Okay," the Doctor called, his voice less calm now, "forget staying still. That might not be the best plan. Instead… RUN!"

They didn't need telling twice. Amy and Rory were bolting towards the Doctor, who was dashing for the staircase up to the next level. All three of them mounted the stairs at the same time, running, not looking back, but aware that the creature would be there. It would be behind them, reforming itself in the vast dark room.

They reached the top of the stairs to find a single, small wooden door. Locked. That inhuman scuttling was becoming audible in the room below.

"Doctor, sonic it!" Amy pleaded hurriedly.

"I'm trying!" the Doctor yelled, holding the sonic screwdriver against the lock. Nothing was happening.

"Doctor, we need to get through there, right now!"

"It's deadlocked!"

The bellowing of the beast was becoming louder, its destructive movements echoing out once more. They could hear it, hear it approaching them, hear it as it came to consume them.

"Just smash it down, then!" Amy shouted in fear.

The three of them rammed themselves against the door. Its wooden body creaked mockingly against their impact, holding itself in place. They kept slamming themselves against it, trying to force it to the ground, their attempts becoming more and more desperate. They could see the shadow of the monster approaching below. The unmistakable smell of its rancid breath was creeping upon them.

Their shoulders took another impact on the wooden door, as the monster's dark, bone covered body became visible at the bottom of the stairs, its bulbous red eyes registering them.

"Come on!" Amy screamed, hitting the door harder and harder.

The worm-like thing hurled itself up the stairs, soaring towards them, its vast dark jaws open, ready. The distance between them disappeared within a second. Those impossible jaws came crashing towards them, only a foot away when the door collapsed and the trio fell to the ground on the other side.

The misshapen head vanished into darkness once more, an instant before it would have hit the wall.

"Well, I'm glad we've got that over and done with." the Doctor commented, quite casually, as he picked himself up and dusted down his jacket.

Rory clambered to his feet, before helping Amy up. The Doctor's attention was fixed on the doorway.

The wall was slowly re-growing. Growing as though it was an organic, biological creature, healing a wound. A stone surface was soon covering the gap where the door had once been, cutting them off from the route back.

The Doctor silently turned back around. They were in a dark, stretching, wooden corridor. The walls were lined with an infinite number of doors and openings to other corridors, the end far out of sight.

"No turning back now…" the Doctor murmured, starting to walk down the impossibly long corridor, Amy and Rory following him. Following him into the stretching darkness…


	6. Chapter 6

They had been walking for a while, though the end of the corridor still shielded itself from sight. Every few feet they would pass an opening to another passageway, down which could be seen a variety of further corridors, splintering off into a twisting maze. The Doctor insisted on sticking to the central route – there was something too untrustworthy about this house, as though if they ventured down a different corridor they may never be able to find their way back.

"Doctor, wait…"

The words came from Amy. She had stopped, her head bowed slightly, as she tried to listen to something.

"Amy? What is it?" the Doctor asked quietly.

"I can hear something."

"Yeah, I can hear it too." Rory said, craning his head forward slightly to hear the noise better. "It's like-"

"Movement." the Doctor finished. "Like something's approaching us."

Slowly, all three of them looked up, their gaze directed down the corridor. At first they thought all they could see was the darkness that seemed to fill every unattended corner and corridor of the house. But it gradually became more apparent that the darkness was moving. Building up into a gathering cloud, it was swarming towards them, picking up speed.

"Doctor, what is that?" Rory demanded, starting to back away from it.

"Can't be…" the Doctor murmured, almost too intrigued to run from the danger. He grabbed the sonic screwdriver out of his pocket, scanning the pitch black fog that was gaining on them. Flicking his wrist up, his eyes darted over the readings from the screwdriver. In a moment of unwelcome realisation, the Doctor whispered two words. "Vashta Nerada."

"What?" Amy and Rory insisted simultaneously.

"Piranhas of the air! Tiny, microscopic creatures that live in the shadows and eat flesh."

"Do you have a plan?" Amy asked desperately.

"Yes." the Doctor replied, with a false air of confidence. "It basically involves running away while I think of a better plan."

That earned horrified glances from both his companions. The Doctor simply returned their look with a smile, before darting down the nearest corridor, grabbing their arms to drag them with him.

The corridor they had entered was short, splitting into two separate directions after a few feet.

"Which way?" Rory asked hastily.

"Doctor!"

Amy screamed the word, having looked back the way they had come. Rory ran to her side, while both he and the Doctor followed her gaze. Their eyes fell upon the shroud of darkness tearing its way towards them, following them down the short, narrow corridor.

There was no time to think. They ran. Amy took one route, Rory following, and the Doctor took the other. The mass of darkness exploded against the wall where the two routes separated, splitting into two streams of shadows, following both the Doctor and his companions.

The Doctor threw himself around another corner, now having completely abandoned his plan of attempting to stay anywhere near the main corridor. He had to get away from the swarm of shadows and so was taking every deviation possible from the main network of corridors, into the smaller wooden walkways.

Finding a shadowed corner, which he hoped would be free of Vashta Nerada, the Doctor hid, silently, at the end of one small corridor and listened to wind-like gusts of movement that had been stalking him. He could just about make out the passing of shadows as his stalkers continued past the corridor and onwards through the house. He was safe, for now at least.

Vashta Nerada – it didn't make sense. The Doctor's mind was furiously puzzling over it. How could there be Vashta Nerada here? More importantly, how were they involved with everything that was going on? This was way beyond them. They were too primitive to be able to create anything like this. Manufacturing fear, that unrecognisable creature that had attacked them on the floor below – the Vashta Nerada were just one part of a much bigger picture.

Considering the facts, the Doctor quietly moved from his hiding place, continuing down the spider web of corridors, not really looking where he was going. There had to be something else going on here. Some form of higher intelligence, members of a more powerful species controlling this. But what?

"Doc-tor…"

The Doctor froze. A cold, stinging shiver shot down his spine. The voice had come from behind him, accompanied by a mechanical whirring of movement. Something had been watching him from the corridors that splintered off from this one. And he knew what. He could never mistake that voice. That harsh, metallic, grating voice. Slowly, almost shaking, he turned round to confront the one thing he feared more than anything else in the universe.

"Resistance is futile, Doctor! You are now a prisoner of the Daleks!"


	7. Chapter 7

Amy and Rory had found safety from the hordes of Vashta Nerada in a small room that lay hidden deep within the winding walls of the second floor. They were standing still, looking about the musty, old furniture that lay in the windowless room and trying to recover their nerves. It had been a narrow escape and now they were unsure as to whether or not any of the endless shadows within the house were safe. And they were trapped. As soon as they had closed the door of the room, the thick cloud of darkness had consumed the hallway.

"Any ideas on how we're going to get out of here?" Rory asked, hoping in vain that Amy would have a solution.

"I don't know. But the Doctor will find something. He'll get us out of here."

Rory was silent, considering it. He didn't want to wait for the Doctor, but he couldn't find a way out. Yet, there was another worry weighing on his mind.

"Amy… what if he doesn't come? What if he can't get to us?"

"What do you mean?"

"We don't know what we're up against in here. Even the Doctor looked confused. What if something's happened to him?"

Amy remained still, thinking about it. The Doctor would be fine – he had to be. But Rory did have a point.

"Okay," she announced, putting on a confident voice, "we need to find a way to get out of here safely. There's a load of flesh-eating shadows outside the door, so unless you find a torch, that's off-limits. This whole floor is like a maze, yeah?"

"Yeah… so?"

"So there has to be more than one way around, right? There's got to be secret passages and things. Start searching the room, see if you can find any hidden doors or something!"

"Amy," Rory began, his tone a little doubtful, "are you sure about this?"

"No." she admitted flatly. "But it's all we've got. We need to find a way out, and we don't have another option."

Rory nodded and set to looking about the dusty room, running his fingers over ancient wallpaper and going through decaying wooden drawers, Amy doing the same on the other side of the room. Her fingertips pressed against what may have once been a brightly coloured section of wallpaper, but was now pale, colourless and lifeless remains, half torn from the concrete wall. As she moved her fingers down, Amy felt something – an imperfection in the wall. Feeling further along the section of paper, she traced it, making out an odd shape carved into the stone surface.

"Can't be…"

Standing back and swallowing her fear, she grabbed a loose end of the wallpaper and tore the sheet away, exposing the cold hard wall beneath. No sooner had she done so than her hand was clasped to her mouth, concealing a quiet scream of shock.

"Amy? What is it?"

Rory's eyes fell on the wall and instantly he understood what was troubling her. Embedded into the concrete was a long, crooked smile shaped crack.

"The crack from my bedroom wall… the cracks in the universe… but the Doctor got rid of them! They never existed!"

"So how can it be here?" Rory asked, confused.

They both watched as in a few, slow seconds, a familiar piercing white light began to shine through the crack, pouring out into the room.

"Don't let the light touch you!" Amy yelled. "If it touches you, you'll never have existed!"

"Yeah, I know!" Rory replied, both agitated and worried. "Already happened to me, remember?"

They both got back, as far as they could, the light becoming evermore intense, creeping out into the room in twisting, shifting tendrils.

"We need a way out. We need to get out, now!" Amy insisted, pressing her back harder against the wall.

"Well, I'm open to suggestions!"

The light was increasing, starting to edge its way across the room to erase Amy and Rory from reality…

The Supreme Dalek, encased in its immaculate white Dalekanium shell, stood in front of the Doctor, red Dalek Drones flanking it. Two stood either side of the Supreme and three were now surrounding the Doctor.

"So, Daleks. Daleks in a big scary house, with Vashta Nerada, a big wormy thing, living butler statues and manufacturing fear." the Doctor babbled, giving himself time to think, keeping his enemies talking. "Not really your style, is it?"

"This facility is not of our design." the Supreme boomed in its deep, grating voice. "The Daleks have merely inhabited this area! Its energy resources will become ours!"

"But there were no traces of Daleks when I arrived. And if you're just draining energy from this house – which isn't actually a house, but I'll get to that later – I would have expected more of a brute force approach…"

"You will be silent!" barked one of the Drones.

"You are our prisoner!" added another.

"Fellers, please… if the gathered masses of the shadow confederates and the forces of Genghis Khan couldn't shut me up, what chance have you got? Really?"

"We are the Daleks! Daleks are supreme! You will obey! Obey!"

"No." the Doctor said calmly. "No, I won't. I mean, I wouldn't obey the Daleks anyway, but even if I would… you're not Daleks."

"We are the Daleks!" insisted the Supreme. "You will obey us, Doctor! You will help us gain access to this facility's energy resources!"

"You don't need access – you are a creation of this facility's energy resources! Manufacturing fear – you're just part of that process, a creation of this house, a copy of the Daleks!"

With an echoing, whirring sound, the gun arm of every Dalek was suddenly pointing at the Doctor.

"You will be exterminated, Doctor!"

"Mind you, you may well be a creation that can kill…"

"Exterminate! Exterminate!" the Daleks chanted, as bright blue beams of lethal energy burst from their weapons.

The Doctor was quick. There was a small opening, a gap, between two of the Drones. He darted through it and ducked into another corridor, just missing a flash of blue light, which tore through the corner of the wall.

"Locate the Doctor and exterminate him!" the Supreme ordered, the Drones already gliding in the direction he had gone.

The Doctor was trying to work it out – what could be powerful enough to create real, deadly versions of things he feared? Why try to increase the fear people felt? What was the meaning of this house?

His thoughts were interrupted as he rounded a corner, and found another of the house's creations waiting for him. Three Cybermen stood at the end of the corridor, their arms outstretched and bearing slim metallic guns.

"Okay… Cybermen copies. And Dalek copies. And goodness-knows-what-else-copies. Not good."

As crimson lasers streamed out of the Cybermen's weapons, the Doctor turned, feeling heat from the attack graze the back of his neck. He forced a door open and ran into the room behind it. Quickly, he slammed the door shut and locked it with the sonic screwdriver.

Collapsing against the wall, he gave a sigh of relief and took in his surroundings. An empty concrete room, with a door at the other end.

_Thud!_

The sound was of a heavy, cyber-fist coming into contact with the door, trying to punch its way through. The Doctor leapt back, examining the door, which was threatening to shatter.

"Cybermen are struggling to break through – so either these copies aren't as strong as the real thing, or that door's a lot tougher than it looks…"

With a sickening crack, the door splintered, a thick metal arm emerging through it.

"But now might not be the best time to look into it."

The Doctor turned on his heel, running fast from his advancing enemy. In a few steps he had crossed the room and his hand was gripping the handle of the other door. Locked. He tugged hard on it, trying to force it open, but it refused to move.

"Come on!" he demanded, in a desperate groan.

A loud crash, from the far end of the room. The door was being broken apart, Cybermen now visible. The Doctor pulled out the sonic, aiming it at the lock on the door in front of him.

"Work, work, come on! Now is a very not good time to not work!"

Nothing – it was deadlocked. And the Cybermen copies were starting to make short work of that door. Another crash, louder – concrete. The walls were being blown apart. A Dalek laser had followed the chunk of discarded wall into the room, their crimson casing just visible through the dusty hole.

"Okay… this is extremely, very, really not good!" the Doctor yelled to himself. "Come on, Doctor, think!"

"EXTERMINATE!" The metal shriek came from beyond the hole in the wall and was followed by another barrage of piercing blue lasers, sending chunks of wall flying across the room. The Doctor had to duck into an awkward position to avoid being knocked down by the broken concrete.

"Think, think, think…! Breaking down the door, slowly, more tension, more fear… so maybe they are capable of destroying the door more quickly…" the Doctor looked up in a moment's realisation. A larger section of the door was broken away by the Cybermen, making their torsos and emotionless metal faces visible, through the dust of damaged concrete and rows of Dalek lasers.

"Oi! Cybermen! Over here! What are you waiting for? Delete me! I'm not going to get scared of you smashing doors down!"

The Cyberman that was stood at the front of the group looked up and raised its arm, displaying its mounted metal gun.

"Come on then – I am incompatible! Delete, delete, delete, that's the normal procedure, isn't it?" The Doctor was yelling his apparent death wish at the cyborg replicas, a desperation hidden behind his confident tone. The concrete wall was falling to shreds. The Daleks were too close, their aim would be too accurate – it had to be the Cybermen.

The metal giant with its arm raised spoke a single word, its mouth illuminating a dull blue.

"Delete."

A red laser bolt tore from the gun, soaring through the air towards the Doctor. It was inches from his chest, before he threw himself aside, hitting the wooden floorboards heavily. The blast collided with the door, sending it flying from its hinges.

"Thanks!" the Doctor called back, as he jumped to his feet. Hunched over to avoid the oncoming Dalek and Cyber fire, he ran through the door and around the corner, into the corridor.

He ducked down another of the darkened corridors, the sonic screwdriver in his hand, scanning the area. He had to find Amy and Rory. They had been chased by the Vashta Nerada and he hadn't seen what had happened. He didn't know if they had been caught, if they were okay, where they were…

The sonic's whirring increased in pitch. It had picked something up. Life signs – human. Two of them. The Doctor grinned, following it and coming to a thick concrete wall. The signal seemed to be strongest here, and just around the corner he could see the familiar dark mass of Vashta Nerada.

"AMY? RORY?"

"DOCTOR!" The shout was slightly muffled, but audible and definitely there. It had come from the other side of the wall.

"Where are you?" the Doctor asked, pressing himself up against the wall.

"We're trapped in here!" Amy's voice shouted back.

"Here being?"

"How should I know? Some old room!"

"Those Vashta things are still outside the door, aren't they, Doctor?" Rory asked.

"Yeah, they're still there. What's happening in the room? Something's wrong, you sound worried."

"Doctor, it's the crack. The crack from my bedroom wall, it's here!"

"What?" the Doctor stopped, scared, not understanding. That was impossible. But so were the Cybermen and the Daleks. "Amy, Rory, listen to me – it's not the crack, it's a copy taken from your minds. A copy of something you fear!"

"So, it won't erase us from time?" Rory asked, both worried and hopeful.

"No. The worst it can do is kill you!" the Doctor explained.

"Not helping!" Amy screamed.

"Okay, yeah, sorry. Killer crack, sinister shadows – oh! I am brilliant!"

"What is it?" Amy demanded.

"The light from the crack – it can't erase you from time, it's not the real thing, but it's still light!"

"So?"

"Amy, think about it! You can't have darkness if there's…"

"Light!" She finished.

"Open the door! Quickly!"

"Are you sure this will work, Doctor?" Rory asked.

"Of course I'm not sure, but I don't hear you coming up with any better suggestions!"

Inside the small room, being flooded by blinding white light, Amy ran madly for the door, its edges being attacked by what looked like luminous vines. The door handle was still just accessible and she quickly took hold of it. As soon as she had placed her hand on it, she felt Rory's hand on top of hers.

"What are you doing?"

"What? You think I'm just going to let you risk your life? Alone?"

She smiled at him, and he returned the expression, though not as confidently.

"You two! Open that door – now!" called the Doctor through the wall.

They both pushed down on the handle and pulled the door back on its hinges. With a little resistance, it swung open in their hands, just as the light from the crack swarmed over where the handle had been. It flooded out into the corridor, scattering the shadows, consuming the Vashta Nerada.

"Get out of there!" the Doctor shouted. "If that light fills the whole doorway, that's your exit gone! I can't stop the light or close the crack. Hurry up!"

The light was streaming through one side of the doorway, but there was still a narrow gap that was just about safe. Amy pressed her back into the doorframe and elegantly slipped through, out into the corridor.

"Come on," she said to Rory, "it's easy!"

Gulping slightly, Rory stepped into the doorway, forcing himself to squeeze back against it. The light was only a few inches from him and spreading fast. With a deep breath, he leapt out into the corridor, landing in an uncomfortable heap on the ground.

Helped up by Amy, he got back to his feet and brushed himself down. He looked up at the sound of his wife's laughter.

"What's so funny?" he asked.

"You just fell flat on your face, stupid!"

"Yeah, well when I'm fleeing from a deadly light, elegance isn't exactly my top priority."

"Oh, shut up."

Amy flung her arms around Rory's neck and pulled him towards her, so that their lips met. As they stood there, together, the sound of footsteps echoed out from around the corner. They broke apart, turning around to see the source of the noise. The Doctor.

"Ah, there you two are! Come on, keep moving, that light's still spreading around the place!" he said casually, as he approached them. "Oh, and there are a few Daleks and Cybermen running around." he added.

"What?" Amy asked sharply.

"Well, technically they're not Daleks and technically they're not Cybermen. And technically, they're not running. Like I said, this place is creating projections of things we fear. Copies, though very good ones. For you it chose the crack, for me it was the Daleks and the Cybermen."

"What about the Vashta Nerada?" Rory asked.

"Oh, no, they were real. They're everywhere, on every planet. Just a very low concentration on most planets, like Earth. This house, or whatever it is, has been absorbing Vashta Nerada from local areas and forcing them all closer together in a big thick concentration. Probably to play on the common fear of the dark." the Doctor explained.

"Why are they so intent on making us scared? Whoever they are…"

"Good question." the Doctor said. "That's what I intend to find out! Come on, I think I've found a staircase – onwards and upwards!"

"Hang on, Doctor, this has been getting worse on every level!" Rory pointed out as they followed him.

"Yes it has!"

"Well, what's up there?"

They rounded a corner finding a narrow wooden staircase, leading up into pitch black darkness. The Doctor turned to away from it to face his companions. He drew in a sharp breath of air, before responding to Rory's question.

"Ground floor, we were attacked by the creepy living butler statues in an abandoned house. Basic way to make us scared. Then we went into those corridors. Fear of isolation and some sort of device amplifying fear. First floor, great big impossible creature, designed to be terrifying attacking us from the dark. Creates fear from a threat. Second floor, we're separated again; fear of isolation. The Vashta Nerada; fear of the dark. The copies of our fears; fear from a threat and something we're already scared of. Next floor, the top floor, judging by the exterior – even if this whole place has been a bit bigger on the inside – it's going to be even worse. The highest possible level of fear. Your deepest and darkest fears turned against you. Prepare to be scared."

With a small smile touching his lips, the Doctor turned and slowly started heading up the stairs, towards the darkened doorway at the top. Heading into the unknown. Striding towards fear.


	8. Chapter 8

A dark, cavernous space opened around the Doctor and his companions, as they reached the top of the stairway and stepped onto the attic floor. The top of the manor house. The peak of fear. The room was vast, though not as large as the room that had taken up the first floor. The ceiling was, however, much higher, invisible because of the thick dark air that shrouded it from sight. All that could be seen of the roof were long bundles of wires trailing down into the centre of the room. The cables all connected to a large, central console that sat in the attic. It was a wide, metallic cylindrical structure, its rusting black surface covered in bright luminous blue panels. Around the room's walls were collections of control panels, display screens and wires, all adorned with flickering electric blue lights. Windows were just about visible, set high into the wall, a little underneath where the cloud of darkness that consumed the ceiling began.

The Doctor was looking around the whole room, examining the technology, taking scans with his sonic screwdriver. He obviously recognised the severity of the situation, but underneath his serious manner there was a recognisable hint of glee.

"Control deck, I'd say." he explained to Amy and Rory. "Going by these controls, I'd guess that this whole place is some form of spaceship. Except, it's not just a spaceship. It's way more than that! This is a whole facility, generating power; using power; telepathic connections; weapons more twisted than most species would dare to see in their darkest nightmares… And it's all focussing on fear. Generating it, capturing it, inducing it, spreading it… why? What's it all for? Who's benefitting from this? _How_ are they benefitting from this?"

"Who would go to all that trouble just to scare people?" Rory questioned.

"Whoever it is, they are powerful. This place is almost, maybe even as powerful, as the TARDIS. Similar technological design in some areas as well. It's like someone's dark, nightmarish version of a TARDIS. But not capable of time travel – all that power that would be given to travelling through the time vortex in the TARDIS is being given to…" he trailed off, unable to find the right words.

"Being given to what?" Amy asked.

"Fear circuits!" the Doctor yelled, though he seemed reluctant to use that phrase. "Telepathic circuitry being used to access all areas of the mind that are related to fear and then use it in all the different ways we've seen it used! Whatever's doing this must be colossally powerful, hugely advanced, incredibly dangerous and… and… children."

The Doctor's gaze was now fixed on the far end of the large attic-like room they were in.

"Children? Doctor, what do you mean?" Rory questioned, in his confused voice.

The Doctor remained silent, simply staring, his attention captured by the room's far end. Slowly, tentatively, Rory and Amy followed his gaze, seeing what he had seen. They both froze. Shocked. Confused. Scared.

Stood at the other end of the room, their forms silhouetted by a series of blue lights, were five children. None of their features were visible, but it was obvious they were not normal children. They weren't human. Their limbs were long and wiry, their torsos slightly too small. On top of their slender shoulders and small, slim necks, were swollen heads, just noticeably larger than they should have been. None of them were completely still, but the movements they made were small and slow – their heads swayed slightly, their arms twitching, as though they were uncertain by their sides.

"Hello?" the Doctor called out cautiously. "Who are you? What are you doing here?"

Silence. The strange childlike creatures seemed not even to notice the Doctor's words.

"I know you can hear me! You've been watching me the whole time, controlling this entire ship – what do you want?"

"We want to play."

The cold, echoing sing-song voice came from one of the strange children, though it was impossible to tell which. Their heads were still gently lolling from side to side, their bodies swaying slightly, like reeds caught in an invisible breeze. Another voice – or perhaps it was the same one – then rang out, a slightly more sinister edge to its tone.

"We want to play with your nightmares."

"Who are you?" the Doctor demanded. His response came in a chorus of echoing, chilling high-pitched voices.

"We are the children of the night. The monsters under your bed. The dwellers of your darkest dreams."

"That's almost poetry!" the Doctor mused. "Very… disturbing… poetry. And, I have to say, not the most helpful explanation as to who you are. So, let's try it this way. Do you know who I am?"

Their heads seemed to twitch slightly at the question. Almost as though they were gripped by fear. Or by pride. Again, they answered in chorus.

"You are the Doctor, the Oncoming Storm, the Destroyer of Worlds. You are the goblin, and the trickster, and the warrior. You are the last of the Time Lords and today you shall fall."

"Yeah, yeah, heard it all before. Who are you?"

For the first time since they had been noticed, the children froze. Their twitching and swaying just stopped. They stood bolt upright, their invisible gaze resting on the Doctor and his companions. And then they stepped forwards. For the first time, light fell onto them and their features could be seen. Rory clasped his hand over his mouth. Amy opened her mouth to scream, but no sound came – just an empty, deathly silence. The Doctor simply stared, a previously unseen fear etched onto his features.

Pitch black rags hung from the slender, alien forms they had been observing. Only the heads and the hands were visible. The children's flesh was a mottled grey, uneven and coated in half frozen moisture. It was wrapped around their imperfect skeletons in a thousand clotted twists and lumps, looking as though it should have been suffocating their delicate forms. Their swollen, misshapen heads were bald with thin, lipless mouths that twisted all the way up their cheeks in a distorted, crack-like shape. Their noses were small, pointed twists in their flesh. But most striking of all their deformed features, were their eyes. Each child had a single, large bulbous pitch black eye. Soft, wet flesh gripped at the edges of the eyeball, sprawling across its rim like an army of minute claws and talons.

"We are the children of fear. And fear shall become our child." said the creature at the front, in that odd unearthly voice. As it spoke, its mouth movements seemed almost incomplete, as though the words shouldn't have been fully formed.

"You can't be…" the Doctor whispered, genuine fear in his voice. "That's impossible."

"Doctor… what are they?" Amy asked quietly. But the twisted children all slowly turned their heads, the creaking of their malformed bones almost audible, like the screech of a harsh night's wind. Their sinister, almost melodic chorus voice answered the question.

"We are the Nightmare Children."

The Doctor was observing in fearful awe, uncertain of what to do. Not knowing how to act. Not knowing how to survive.

"The Nightmare Children… one of the deadliest and most feared species to have lived throughout all creation. The Time Lords even named the Time War's greatest weapon after you."

"We are far more powerful than anything of Gallifrey's design."

"And you're impossible." the Doctor breathed, his voice still trapped in a hushed tone. "You've existed since intelligent life first emerged in the universe, tearing your way through the Dark Times, skipping between reality and nightmares, running through the void. Feasting off the universe's greatest fears. You exist simply because the universe feels fear."

"How's that possible?" Rory asked in a shaking voice.

"The realms of the universe were once so much smaller." answered one of the children. "When life was first forming, all life was still connected through the very fabric of reality. As life first started to rise into darkness and terror, we were born out of the fears of the universe."

"What does that mean?" Rory demanded.

"When the universe was first forming, it went into what the Time Lords named the Dark Times." the Doctor explained. "All of creation was controlled by terror; life forms were forming in new, impossible ways, the laws of time and space still settling, still undecided. Basic psychic waves ran through the entire universe, connecting every life form they came into contact with, and connecting with each other. Vast networks, connecting every single life form in the universe! But they were more powerful than most people realise. Psychic energy can't really form unless there's something living to create it. In this case, the psychic waves were alive themselves. A life force, draining on all the thoughts of all the universe and all of those thoughts were spawning from terror. Eventually, it was enough to create new life out of the psychic energy, simply by twisting all of the fear together. And it formed the Nightmare Children…"

"We were born of the darkness, and fear, and horror that fell across the skies of all reality." the horrific creatures insisted in their eerie unison.

"But you were destroyed." the Doctor said flatly. "The Time Lords scattered you into atoms!"

"We returned to our original form, merely released from these bodies." explained one of the children, their heads now gently swaying once again.

"You became psychic waves. Living as entities, connecting the minds of living beings… how did you become all sort of solid, and… creepy, again?" the Doctor asked, his tone attempting to hide his fear.

"We ran to the Earth, carried in our last vessel, and spread through the dreams of the world."

The Doctor paused, pondering the thought.

"You existed in the dreams of the human race? How long have you been here?"

"A great many years. Since humanity first learnt to crawl, we have been watching from within."

"And all that time you've been reforming yourselves… how?"

"We entered their dreams, and brought the darkness of time with us. We flooded their minds with fear, which would grow and flourish and flower, granting us our bodies once more."

"You gave all of humanity nightmares, you _created _nightmares on Earth, that created fear within the humans and that was enough for you to rebuild your bodies."

"Correct."

"Then what are you still doing here? This ship's in perfect working order, you can fly away, you have your bodies back – what's keeping you on Earth? You've been here thousands of years, at least, when you could be off exploring the stars!"

The Nightmare Children's heads all twitched, their flesh writhing as they regarded the Time Lord.

"The nightmares we infested within humanity shall flourish and consume the Earth."

"Meaning?"

"You will see."

The children all craned their thin necks upwards, staring up into the darkness that clouded the top of the room. The Doctor, Amy and Rory all turned their attention the same way, observing in silence as controls within the room began to hum violently.

Gradually, the darkness faded, revealing that which it had been hiding. The top of the room was a dome-like shape, though the top stretched far out of sight. Lining the walls were innumerable grey, glass pods. Within each of these, there rested a human being. There was a variety of ages amongst them, though most seemed to be children. All frozen, their eyes closed tightly, an expression of anguish worn on their faces.

"You've been luring people to this house for a long time…" the Doctor realised. "And you're keeping them in suspended animation – just dreaming! Trapped in their nightmares. Or, rather, your nightmares."

"The wave that connected us to the rest of the universe has been passed through them. They are connected by the consciousness of the Nightmare Children." another child explained.

"Trapped in their nightmares and you're using all that psychic energy to make their nightmares real. Just like you did for us, with the Daleks and the crack."

"Correct." the Nightmare Children chorused.

"Then why haven't you done it? Why has the Earth not been submerged in nightmares-made-reality?"

"We are not as powerful as we once were."

"Thousands of years of nightmares… and you still haven't regained all your power. Because you can't." the Doctor was slowly piecing all the facts together now, making sense of it all. "When you last had all that power, like I said, the laws of time and space were still forming – now you're in a universe where they're fully formed. You're getting desperate, even draining life from the grass just to keep yourselves going! You can create a few, small, weakened copies of fears but you can't create a fully-fledged army of nightmares! You would need to break down the boundaries of reality to do that!"

"And that is what we shall do."

"Oh really? And how do you plan to do that, then?"

The sapphire light from the illuminated panels on the room's central column intensified, accompanied by an electronic screeching. The large illuminated panels slid up along the console, which extended right up to the invisible roof. As rolling waves of smoke billowed out from within and subsided, a familiar sight was revealed. Sat there, wires trailing from its surface was the bright blue shape of the TARDIS.

"No!" the Doctor yelled out, as soon as his ship became visible. "No, you can't use the TARDIS! It's too powerful for this! You can't!"

Four of the children were already attending to control banks at the edges of the room, operating the controls the TARDIS was now wired into. One child remained standing by the blue box, its single shining black eye watching the Doctor intently.

"Doctor, what do they want to use the TARDIS for?" Amy asked.

"They need to break through the walls of time and space, break down the laws of reality and restore the twisted sciences of the Dark Times – the very first days of the universe. The TARDIS is the perfect engine for them!"

"And now Doctor, you will begin the eternal era of darkness." the child ordered, in its sweet yet sinister tone.

"Me? What do you expect me to do?"

"You are required to access and operate the TARDIS."

"What?" the Doctor was almost smiling now, his tone a little incredulous. "You can't operate it?"

"In order for our ship to gain access to the time vortex, the TARDIS must become linked to the vortex." the child explained, apparently not the slightest bit bothered by their dependence on the Doctor. "Our forms are still vulnerable to the slightest exposure to time energy or travel through the vortex. A Time Lord is required."

"Oh, I see! Well, sorry fellers, but the answer's no. Not going to happen. Not today, not ever. Now, let your prisoners go, and leave before I pull your ship apart, piece by piece."

"The Doctor will comply." the Nightmare Child insisted.

"No, I won't." the Doctor repeated. "Nice thought, but not happening. Now, goodbye!"

The child simply allowed its head to flop to one side and reached out a thin, bony arm, wrapped in deformed flesh. A low hissing noise crept out from its elongated, lipless mouth and thick black rings of smoke formed around its outstretched hand.

Suddenly, the same smoke was wrapping itself around the Doctor's body, forcing him to the floor, letting out a scream of agony.

"Doctor!" Amy screamed, running towards him.

"Stay!" the child ordered, its voice sharper than before. Amy involuntarily froze, feeling herself being held back. She looked around. Nothing was restricting her, but she had been stopped from moving. The child was doing something, using its powers to constrain her.

The Doctor lay on the floor, thick clouds of smoke now starting to form around him, curling up into strange, distorted shapes. It was surrounding him, but enclosing him as well, washing against his body. Amy saw one tower of smoke momentarily form the shape of a Dalek, before dispersing itself into atoms. Then a blurred Cyberman was visible, and a Weeping Angel, before also vanishing into darkness. The children were using the Doctor's fears.

"Your deepest and darkest fear, Doctor, shall rise against you." the child taunted, its high voice echoing endlessly through the rooms high walls.

The Doctor propped himself up on his arms, forcing his head up so that he could see the smoke swirling into new forms in front of him. Amy and Rory watched as through the smoke, there stepped a figure. A man, his face, his clothes instantly betraying his identity. The Doctor. A copy of him, standing over the real Time Lord, glaring down at him with contempt. The copy's clothes were differing shades of grey and black, and his eyes held an obvious red luminosity.

"The Doctor." the darkly clad copy said slowly, its voice the same as the Doctor's but with a haunting echoing quality to it. "The last of the Time Lords. The Oncoming Storm. The Saviour of the Earth. And humanity's greatest threat."

"No…" the real Doctor whispered, though his words were ignored by his double.

"Look at you. Look at what the mighty and noble Time Lords have been reduced to. An imbecile, who sees fit to call himself a hero, when he endangers so many lives. Desperately trying to fit in with the snivelling apes he so adores. You even try to dress like a member of their filthy species and you fall even at that task. You cannot think like them, you can't see the universe with the same beauty that they see and ultimately, deep down, Doctor, you refuse to lower yourself to their level!"

"They are so much more than you! So much more than the Time Lords!" the Doctor insisted through strained breaths, his eyes now tightly shut.

"How the mighty have fallen!" the copy continued, "The Time Lords were once able to look down on all creation, allowing time and tide to pass, but you couldn't resist getting involved. And as a result, how many have died?"

"Stop it. Please, stop it!" the Doctor insisted, the black smoke sweeping through him, exaggerating every ounce of fear he was feeling.

"You claim to be a saviour, Doctor, but I know the truth of you. All those humans you vow to save and leave to die. Those friends of yours that lose their lives in your name. They have died alone and afraid, because of you, Doctor. You are a bringer of death, and doom and destruction."

As the copy spoke, the Doctor opened his eyes to see copied figures of Amy and Rory appear either side of his own duplicate. The smoke wrapped itself around them, engulfing their forms, draining the life from their flesh, their eyes becoming hollow.

"I'll do it!" the Doctor screamed, his voice agonised and unlike his own. "I'll help you!"

In a slow, sweeping movement, the smoke that had surrounded him disbanded itself, leaving the Time Lord cold and alone on the room's dusty floor, his breath beating heavily against his ears. He gradually got to his feet and began to walk towards his TARDIS.

"Doctor, no! You can't help them!" Rory called out in desperation.

"I don't have a choice." the Doctor responded quietly. "There's no way to stop them. If I don't help the Nightmare Children, I can't save any of them." He gestured upwards, to the imprisoned, sleeping humans.

"If you help the Nightmare Children, they're only going to suffer!" Amy pleaded.

The Doctor was silent, before he placed the key in the TARDIS lock.

"Sorry, Pond."

He stepped inside the familiar old time machine, walking up the small staircase to the console. After hitting a series of keys on the typewriter, the Doctor looked up at the monitor. It was displaying readouts from the Nightmare Children's machinery. The Doctor glanced over the readings, a new concern gripping his expression.

"Hold on…" he said, "these readings are saying you're not just using the TARDIS to help you turn nightmares into reality, you're using the TARDIS to connect to the nightmares of all of time and space through your psychic network. You're not just using the nightmares of your captives, they're only providing a template. You're going to fill the entire universe with the nightmares of every living thing! Why?"

"The nightmares are our realm. So now, we shall turn all reality into our realm." the children explained in their menacing chorus.

"But why are you doing it? Every nightmare that's ever existed being turned into reality… why?"

"Because it is fun." one child said simply. "We are forever children and we run and play and laugh and dance through the fear of others. Nightmares exist within the universe because of us and now we shall make our designs reality."

"Nightmares exist because of them… Doctor, what do they mean?" Rory asked.

"The psychic waves that created the Nightmare Children still exist. That psychic energy and the Nightmare Children are connected – technically they're one and the same thing. They embedded the energy across all of time. Every nightmare anyone has ever had, comes from them." the Doctor explained, his tone horrified, as though the realisation had only just sunk in.

"And now they want to use the TARDIS to make those nightmares real?" Amy continued.

"Yes. Their perfect realm, made real."

"But, why take prisoners? What do they need them for?"

"We require a template." answered one of the children. The Doctor continued its explanation from inside the TARDIS.

"The machine needs to come into direct contact with people who are having nightmares, so they use the captives. Then the TARDIS boosts their power by an infinite amount and spreads it across the history and future of the entire universe, making every nightmare that ever has existed, or ever will exist, a reality!"

"Now, the Doctor will start the TARDIs engines." a Nightmare Child said in a tone that could almost have been polite.

"No I won't." the Doctor answered. "It's too much. Too dangerous. I can't do it."

"Then perhaps we can invite your friends to meet their deepest fears." the child-like creatures chorused.

"No!" the Doctor retorted quickly. "I'll do it. I'll help you."

"Doctor, you can't!" Amy screamed.

"Amy… trust me." the Doctor said slowly, before busying himself at the TARDIS controls.

He was moving around the console slower than usual, flicking switches, throwing levers, pressing buttons. As he busied himself at the controls, he gave the Nightmare children a commentary of what he was doing.

"Okay, forming a vortex link to the Dark Times… setting up an inverted helix loop… initiating time wave and running it through a binary triple enfolded psychic link…"

He threw a few final switches and then positioned himself at the Wibbly Lever, as he had once called it. He stood still, staring through the doors at the now gathered Nightmare Children.

"Are you ready?" he asked bitterly.

"Begin the reign of nightmares." the children's gathered voices ordered.

"On your own head be it." the Doctor whispered, before placing his hand on the lever. He took a deep breath, Amy and Rory watching in fear. All three prepared themselves, the Nightmare Children watching with a twisted, darkened glee. The Doctor pulled the lever.

In an instant, bright white lightning was forming over the equipment in the room, light replacing the darkness, an impossible wind scattering dust from the floor. The blinding light was issuing out from the pods overhead, their occupants now waking. Smiling.

The Doctor was stood cool, calm and relaxed in the TARDIS doorway, in the middle of the chaotic scene, watching the furious Nightmare Children as they fought against fearsome sharp torrents and explosions of light, to check their displays and readouts.

"What have you done?" they shouted, over the crackling of energy and gusts of wind.

"Oh, did I forget to confine the psychic link to your pre-determined psycho-kinetic wavelength?" the Doctor asked casually. "Sorry, I'm always doing that!"

He flashed a broad grin at the infuriated alien children, Amy and Rory sharing the expression.

"Sorry, what have you done?" Rory asked him, confused.

"I extended their range a bit. They feed off fear and nightmares, but the universe has so much more than that. I'm feeding their machine the hopes, dreams and wishes of all reality! Every thought, every desire, every pain, every longing, every treasured memory, every love, every friendship of every species, all racing through their circuits and through their bodies!" the Doctor explained triumphantly.

"You will die for this, Doctor!" the children screamed, their flesh now curdling and writhing over their scrawny forms, as they struggled against the bright light and harsh breezes that were soaring through the room. Thick, pulsating purple veins were starting to spread across their bulbous black eyes and their twisting mouths hung open in elongated cries of pain.

"Somehow, I'm not convinced!" the Doctor commented, still smiling at the Nightmare Children's downfall.

With a severe gust of wind, emphasised by a surge in the bright white light that was now pouring through the once darkened house, the skeletal forms of the Nightmare Children disintegrated, every molecule of their bodies scattering outwards to be lost in the eruption of light and movement. As the last of their forms disappeared, Amy and Rory turned to the Doctor, their faces slightly concerned. The Nightmare Children were gone, but the crackling white energy and small whirlwinds within the Manor were still present.

"Doctor – what's going to happen to the house now?" Amy asked.

"Well, like I said, it's not a house, it's a spaceship. And it absorbed all the energy the Nightmare Children did and, like them, it's not designed to take all the positive energy, so I would say it's going to explode!" he finished with another of his manic grins, which suddenly fell as his own words dawned upon him. "Oh dear."

Amy and Rory quickly ran across the room, cutting through the dust that had been swept up into a thin fog in the air. Shielding their eyes, they ran through the wooden blue doors and into the TARDIS.

"Come on, then. Let's go!" Amy said hurriedly.

"It's not that simple." the Doctor explained, rubbing his eyes. "All the people that the Nightmare Children took prisoner are still trapped. We can't just leave them!"

"Isn't the TARDIS, connected to the machine that's connected to all of them?" Rory prompted, at which the Doctor's face seemed to light up.

"Oh, of course! Rory, you're brilliant! I can set up an externalised dematerialisation inclusion field, by inverting the TARDIS's internalised vortex shielding…"

"English, please, Doctor!" said Amy.

"I can do this!" the Doctor replied simply, before turning a dial on the console and then throwing the main lever. The familiar wheezing of the TARDIS sounded out and the trio watched as the ship began to dematerialise. Leaving them behind.

Rory and Amy were too shocked to say anything, until the TARDIS was gone and they found themselves still stood in the house. The bright burning of light was still surrounding them, becoming more intense, strong whips of wind tearing through the attic control room.

"Doctor, what have you done?" Amy snapped.

"Oh, don't worry." the Doctor retorted, as though she was overreacting. "Look up!"

Amy and Rory both turned their gaze upwards. Every one of the dark glass containment pods was empty. The human prisoners that had rested within them were gone.

"They dematerialised with the TARDIS. Should be safe now."

"But what about us?" Rory shouted at the Doctor.

"Stop worrying! This ship is shutting down, all we have to do is run to the bottom floor and leave through the front door!"

"You said this ship was going to explode! And there are four floors, one of which is a maze!" Rory insisted.

"Yeah," the Doctor agreed, grinning gleefully, "squeaky bum time!"

"Doctor… what do the numbers on this screen mean? It's saying two thirty and it's going down…" Amy questioned, fearing the answer.

"Countdown! Minutes and seconds until _boom_!" the Doctor responded, still insanely jolly. "Super squeaky bum time! Now, you two, let's do what us time travellers have always done best."

"What?" Rory asked flatly.

"Run!"


	9. Chapter 9

They didn't need telling twice. Within a second, the three of them were bolting for the doorway and running down the narrow staircase they had come up, into the maze of corridors that waited below. The screen in the room above was still slowly counting their time, coming closer to the two minute mark, the Doctor keeping track of the countdown mentally.

Leaving the stairs far behind, they were weaving their way through the maze of interweaving corridors, Amy and Rory following the Doctor, who seemed to give the impression he knew the way. They ran down the corridor, past the room that had contained the crack, turning a corner, then another. They could all practically hear the countdown ticking away, counting away the seconds they had left to live. Rounding another corner, they ran at full speed down another corridor, the Doctor never stopping, never stumbling, doing what he was used to doing – running for his life.

Another corner, the Doctor turned sharply, Amy and Rory having to slow down slightly to follow his unpredictable movements. Within a few seconds, they were on the home stretch, the main corridor becoming visible ahead of them. The Doctor practically leapt into it, Amy and Rory close behind.

"Er, Doctor…" Rory began. But the Doctor had already seen it. The shroud of Vashta Nerada, sat in silent patience at the end of the corridor.

"Keep moving!" the Doctor yelled, running from the now fast-moving curtain of shadows. At the far end of the long hallway, there was now a door-shaped hole once again where the wall had originally grown over the doorway. "Default settings." the Time Lord commented under his breath as he ran through, heading down the next staircase, Amy following him and Rory close behind her.

"Doctor, that creature-" Amy began, remembering the hideous beast that had attacked them on this floor.

"Was a creation of the Nightmare Children! With them gone, it's gone!" the Doctor finished, his tone as hurried as his footsteps. The floor was easy to cover without the monster pursuing them. They ran across the open space, only occasionally having to dodge a wooden pillar.

In his mind's eye, the Doctor could still see time ticking away. They would have less than a minute now. He led Rory and Amy through a door – they were taking a different route to the one they had used to reach this floor. It would take far too long to cover those long, isolated corridors again. Behind the door, they found a shorter corridor leading to the house's main staircase – the one that would lead them to the entrance hall.

"Come along Ponds!" the Doctor yelled back, aware of the ever-growing distance between him and his companions.

_BANG!_

A section of the ceiling above them had collapsed, a torrent of dust being thrown across them. The white lightning they had seen in the control room was spreading, becoming visible throughout all the corridors. Vibrations from the upcoming explosion were tangible throughout the entire building now, and becoming heavier with every second. The Doctor, Amy and Rory were all struggling to stay on their feet, the vibrations becoming more of a miniature earthquake, as they clambered over the pile of rubble that was once ceiling. The staircase was just ahead of them.

_Ten seconds, _the Doctor thought, as he leapt from the carpeting of the corridor to the narrow surfaces of the steps, landing a little ungracefully on them. Amy and Rory were there, racing into the entrance hall. A clutter of now lifeless butler statues filled the room, a reminder of the past threat.

_Five seconds._

"Come on!" the Doctor ordered, the front door now in sight.

_Three._

They couldn't make it. Only the Doctor had been keeping track of time, but the rocking of the house and violent flashes of lightning were now so severe that they could all tell there was no way they would reach the door in time.

_Two._

The wooden black door just ahead, just out of reach. No time to sonic. Just one last hope…

_One._

"GERONIMO!"

The Doctor threw himself forwards Amy and Rory leaping wildly into the air. The explosion was titanic. It burst out of every wall of the building, bathed in scorching flames, sweltering heat and blinding light. The shockwave propelled the time travellers through the air, the door ahead of them blown clean off its hinges. Thick tides of dust were drowning all clarity from the air, choking the Doctor and his companions as they leapt through the building's obliteration, rolls of black smoke blinding them…

The clouds of destruction seemed to disappear, parting from the bodies of the two humans and the Time Lord. The trio burst through the smokescreen, landing a few feet in front of it, flat on the dead grass that rested atop Elm Hill. The last swathes of smoke and flames faded, the house destroyed. It was over.


	10. Chapter 10

A short stroll later and the time travellers came to a gathered mass of incredibly confused looking people, stood together at the foot of the hill. Amy instantly recognised a few of the faces from the dark glass pods they had been imprisoned in.

"See?" the Doctor said. "The TARDIS took them all to the nearest safe spot available! Everything worked out fine!"

"We did have to jump out of an exploding house." Rory reminded him.

"Yeah…" conceded the Doctor, "but that was cool!"

Amy laughed at the Doctor's explanation, and even Rory responded to it with a grin. Exhausted from the unusual amount of fear the day had involved, and the very usual amount of running it had involved, Amy let herself collapse into her husband's arms. Rory welcomed her gratefully, gently resting his head against hers. Standing together, they watched the Doctor addressing the recently freed people, trying to explain himself with the aid of the psychic paper.

"Hello everyone, I'm Professor John Smith, from the Foundation of… Dreamiology…" they overheard him say, which was enough to earn a giggle from both of them.

A minute later and the Doctor was walking back over to them, satisfied that he had done enough to explain their situation to them. He hadn't even reached Amy and Rory, before he was looking past them and running with glee.

"There she is!" he cried cheerfully, as he jogged straight past his companions. Amy and Rory both turned around to see what had caught his attention. Their eyes fell on the all too familiar sight of the Doctor and the TARDIS. They both quickly ran over to join him, as he opened the doors.

"Come on then, onwards and upwards, as usual!" he exclaimed, allowing Rory to walk past into the time machine. Amy, however, lingered in the doorway, speaking in a worried tone.

"Is that it then, Doctor? Are the Nightmare Children gone for good?"

The Doctor was silent for a cold moment, before he answered her.

"They're defeated. That's what counts."

"But are they gone?"

"No. They'll have been scattered back into psychic waves. But their ship's gone – without that technology it will be almost impossible for them to ever reform."

"Almost impossible?" Amy asked, still concerned.

"As close to impossible as it can get, I'm afraid. Those psychic waves still exist, still affecting every human. Whenever you have a nightmare, whenever you wake up from a bad dream, that's them. The Nightmare Children, passing through your mind, trying to rebuild themselves from your fears. So the next time you wake up, scared, in the middle of the night – check the shadows a little more carefully. There could be a Nightmare Child there… waiting for you…"

The Doctor gave that frightening, yet mischievous, smile he had, a twinkle in his eye.

"Right… can I get a psychiatrist, or something, to help with bad dreams?"

"Oh, Amy, if you're having nightmares, you don't need a psychiatrist." the Doctor said in a reassuring tone.

"No?"

"No! You need a Doctor!"

And with a final grin, he beckoned her into the TARDIS, following her to the console, setting co-ordinates and controls for the next trip. Preparing to fly onwards through the dark, howling winds of time. There were still fears to fight.


End file.
